The Old Spirit
Is It Nationalism?

Roosevelt portrait by George Burroughs Torrey

Thomas Plant built a guest bedroom suite at Lucknow for his
friend, TR, out of admiration for his muscular patriotism.

Roosevelt equestrian statue by Daniel Chester French

My great grandfather, George Henry Colby (father of my
grandmother, Susan Colby Tobey), for whom my father was named, shared the Rough
Rider's spirit. In 1898, at the age of fifty-seven, he answered McKinley's call
for volunteers for the war with Spain, and joined the New Hampshire 1st
Regiment.

George Henry Colby's officer's wardrobe chest.

George Colby used this chest in the Civil War and again in the
Spanish American War.

My grandmother, Susan Tobey, gave the chest to my father. My
father gave it to me.

George Colby's officer's wardrobe trunk is material witness to his
nationalist spirit. He volunteered for duty in both the Civil War and the
Spanish-American War. My father was drafted into World War Two in 1944, having
avoided duty as long as possible. Once inducted, he served honorably. I was
called up in the Vietnam War in 1966, but I was classified as 4F, primarily
because of childhood illnesses, and did not serve.

My mother and father were disappointed that I could not serve. My
mother said, Your father had his war, and now you have yours. I
opposed the war politically in a variety of ways, though I did not consider
myself a political activist. I briefly worked in Eugene McCarthy's campaign in
Pennsylvania in 1968 and joined anti-war marches in Pittsburgh in
1969.

The history of military service to the United States by three
generations of my family reflects, I suppose, the desanctification of American
patriotism. Nonetheless, when terrorists attacked my country on September 11,
my patriotism quickly surged up through my mourning for the victims of the
massacres and their families and my fears for my children.

Theodore Roosevelts sayings on The
State.

The dedication of the American Museum of Natural History, in New
York City, to Theodore Roosevelt, is another relic of the nation's commitment
to righteous nationalism and the active state that Roosevelt espoused and
helped to create. The horseback sculpture of Roosevelt, by Daniel Chester
French, on the Museums steps, epitomizes the belief that the politically
organized nation, guided by righteous men and women, has an idealistic
civilizing mission.

I had difficulty accepting the ideal of nationalism. Before I was
fifteen years old, I was reading One World literature and collected
a small library of thin books about the One-World Movement. I twice represented
Plymouth High School in the New Hampshire State Model United Nations,
experiences that helped shape my political philosophy.

Growing up in a small, Republican New England village of 800
persons, I certainly did not understand the historical context of the
alternative vision I embraced. I knew nothing of Wilsonian Idealism, the League
of Nations, the Federation of Atomic Scientists, Henry Wallaces final
campaign, the Disarmament Movement, and the Anti-Nuclear Testing Movement.

In the Cold War, certainly in New England, I did hear much that
was terrible of Communism and Stalinism. My most lasting, vivid, radio memories
are of listening late into the night to news broadcasts about the 1956
Hungarian Uprising. That Communism did not appeal to me is easy to explain. But
what assemblage of cues in a New England village, where conservative
nationalism was the public ideology, where the Civil War and the Revolutionary
War were ceremonialized, and veterans marched in uniform in local parades, led
me to think that nationalism was the great political problem of our era?

Now Ilike so many persons of my
generationpatriotically prepare myself for war for the first time. The
second Roosevelt quotation, below, expresses an important motive in our views
of the coming war in the Middle East.

From the wall plaque in the Roosevelt Rotunda at the Museum of
Natural History.

Cessation of the killing of Jews is assuredly a matter of
righteousness. It is as radical a demand as was the New England call for
immediate emancipation of the slaves in the 1830s. It is the outstanding
international issue of our times.

Photo of the Torrey portrait of Theodore Roosevelt is from the
Library of Congress Detroit Publishing Co. on-line exhibition.